


drift along the desert sand

by patrokla



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Domestic, Interlude, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e05 Don't Speak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 22:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17795807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: “You know,” Alex says, as the New Mexico desert passes them by, “I’m surprised you stayed. Always thought you’d be the big college success.”Michael’s hands tighten on the wheel, and Alex can see his shoulders square almost imperceptibly.“I’m surprised you came back.”





	drift along the desert sand

**Author's Note:**

> I watched all of Roswell in a day and needed to do something to fill up the two weeks to the next episode, so here's a little post 1x05 interlude. I'm not sure about all the air force details here - I tried to look it up and immediately got hives, so. Hopefully it's not too inaccurate. Spoilers for episode 5.
> 
> Title from Still Corner's "Strange Pleasures."
> 
> Warnings for very brief reference to past abuse, and a brief ableist incident.

After ten years away, the dry heat of New Mexico hits Alex like a slap in the face, sharp and sudden. The light of the morning sun and the rising heat distracts him for a moment, and then he sees Michael’s truck.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he asks Michael, who's leaning against the hood and looking totally unbothered.  
  
“Needed to get away,” Michael replies, “And somebody mentioned you’ve been staying up here.”  
  
“Somebody should mind their own business,” Alex says, already going through the list of suspects in his head. Kyle Valenti must’ve told Liz, who told Max, who told Michael. Who is here, five feet from his porch.  
  
“I’m just heading to town,” Alex tells him, and Michael straightens.  
  
“Need a ride?”  
  
Alex eyes Michael. Away from the crowd, away from his father, his anger about Michael’s stupid financial decisions seems misplaced. Or at least a little bit of an overreaction.  
  
“Fine,” he says. He hates his military-issued SUV, anyway. Hates driving it, and especially hates how out of place he feels in the huge, sleek, perfect machine.  
  
Michael’s truck is old, but its engine purrs as Michael backs it away from the cabin and onto the poorly paved road that will take them to the highway, and then to Roswell.  
  
Alex watches Michael’s hands, sure on the wheel, for a long moment. Finally, he asks, “What are you trying to get away from?”  
  
“Family drama,” Michael says easily, “Lies, betrayal, relationship problems - the _yuje_.”  
  
He draws the last word out, glancing at Alex to smile conspiratorially at him.   
  
Alex smiles back, if only at the fact that ‘family drama’, for Michael, no longer includes a revolving door of foster families and new abuses.  
  
“I assume you’re not a part of this drama,” he says dryly, and Michael grins.  
  
“Me? Drama? You know I enjoy a quiet life,” Michael says.   
  
Alex lets out an incredulous huff at that.  
  
“You know,” he says, as the New Mexico desert passes them by, “I’m surprised you stayed. Always thought you’d be the big college success.”  
  
Michael’s hands tighten on the wheel, and Alex can see his shoulders square almost imperceptibly.  
  
“I’m surprised you came back.”  
  
Alex looks away, out the window. “It wasn’t my choice. I go where I’m ordered.”  
  
“Sucks to be you,” Michael says blithely, casual tone at odds with the tension Alex can feel in the cab of the truck.  
  
“It’s not all bad,” Alex says. Trying to walk things back. “I missed…”  
  
Michael laughs when Alex trails off, unable to finish the sentence.   
  
“Yeah,” he says, “Me too.”  
  
—  
  
Summer is the busiest time of year in Roswell, tourists flocking from all over to gawk at the sand and the desert and the people. With Grant Green dead and his memorabilia destroyed, there’s not much else to gawk at.  
  
In uniform, Alex feels like part of that display. Dressed in civvies, he stands out for other reasons.  
  
“Mom,” a boy at the grocery store says, tugging at his mother’s shirt, “why’s that man have a cane?”  
  
The woman looks away from the shelves of cereal towards Alex, flushing as she sees him. “Jackson!” she snaps in embarrassment, and Alex gives her a bland smile as he pushes his cart down the aisle.   
  
“Jesus,” Michael says behind him, “That happen a lot?”  
  
Alex feels his face heat with his own embarrassment.   
  
“Sometimes,” he says.   
  
He shouldn’t have let Michael drive him to the store. He definitely shouldn’t have let Michael come in with him.  
  
“Help me find the peanut butter,” he says, before Michael can continue with - whatever he’s feeling about it all.   
  
“Already got it,” Michael says, moving up to drop a jar into the cart. It’s pre-stirred, smooth, the cheap sugary kind Alex has always preferred. He keeps his eyes on the aisle, away from Michael, and suffocates the “You remembered?” rising in his throat.  
  
“Need jelly?”   
  
Alex shakes his head mutely.  
  
“Plain peanut butter sandwiches,” Michael scoffs, “Sometimes I think you don’t want to be happy.”  
  
Alex shakes his head again, and smiles at the jar of peanut butter.  
  
—  
  
“So how come you’re not living on the base? Thought that was part of the whole army thing.”  
  
“Air force,” Alex corrects, watching Michael put bags of groceries into the tiny space behind the driver’s seat. “And it’s because I’m - I’m getting out.”  
  
Michael pauses, one hand lifting the carefully wrapped carton of eggs. “Out?”  
  
“My ten year service commitment is almost up,” Alex says. “I could sign another contract, but I…”  
  
“Don’t want to?” Michael suggests.  
  
“Something like that,” Alex replies. He’d never wanted to.   
  
They get back into the truck, but Michael doesn’t start it.  
  
“Alex,” he starts, and then pauses.   
  
“Alex,” he says again, and Alex feels a wave of inexplicable tenderness wash over him.  
  
“Do you want to come back to the cabin?” Alex asks.  
  
Michael lets out a sigh.  
  
“I’d like it if you did,” Alex tries, and finds that he really would.  
  
“Okay,” Michael says quietly, starting the truck. “Okay.”  
  
\---  
  
The cabin stays cool in the summer heat. The windows need to be re-caulked, or that coolness will linger into winter and turn into a chill, but that’s a problem for the fall.  
  
Right now, the contrast of the cool air with the warmth of Michael’s skin is soothing. Alex revels in the feeling of the clean sheets, in the wide bed in a room with locks that his father doesn’t have keys to, and in the feeling of Michael’s arm flung over his stomach, face pressed against his shoulder.  
  
“Are you gonna stay?”   
  
Michael’s muttered question jars the calm settling over Alex.

"What?"  
  
“Are you going to stay,” Michael repeats, lifting his head to look at Alex, “when you get out?”  
  
“Well, it’s still a couple months before I’m out, and then I’ll be in the reserves for two years,” Alex says, “I’ll be here for a while.”  
  
Michael’s fingers tap against Alex’s skin anxiously, but he lays his head against Alex’s shoulder again.  
  
“I’ll be here forever,” Michael says softly. Bleakly.  
  
Alex grasps the hand on his stomach and intertwines his fingers with Michael’s.  
  
“I’m glad you’re here,” he tells him.  
  
Michael kisses his shoulder softly, settling more solidly against Alex’s side.  
  
Alex lets the sensations pull him back into calmness, and listens as Michael’s breaths slow into sleep.


End file.
